The start of this week saw the first official roll-out of Cyanogen OS 12 (based on Android 5.0, Lollipop). The update headed to the OnePlus One, bringing the device up to Android 5.0.2. Likewise, it was also reported this week that Micromax’s Yu branded, Yureka smartphone is also now in the ‘awaiting certification’ period and will also begin to receive Cyanogen OS 12 soon. As such, the Cyanogen flavored version of Lollipop has now very much landed in an official capacity.
This has only been half of the Cyanogen news of late though. The company has recently wrapped up a funding round which saw Cyanogen net a significant level of financial backing from some of the biggest names in the industry. That said, one name who was not included on the backer listing (but had been largely rumored to be possibly investing) was Microsoft. In spite of the lack of official backing, it was also widely reported that the two companies had been ‘in talks’ and were looking to work together in some capacity.
The latest on this, Cyanogen have now confirmed that Cyanogen and Microsoft will partner in 2015. The information provided by Cyanogen states that the Cyanogen OS platform will offer Microsoft services “later this year“. Further adding “Under the partnership, Cyanogen will integrate and distribute Microsoft’s consumer apps and services across core categories, including productivity, messaging, utilities, and cloud-based services“. The information also does confirm that a number of these consumer apps and services will come in the form of the more well-known Microsoft offerings, such as Bing, Skype, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook, and Microsoft Office. More interestingly, Cyanogen has also advised that the collaboration will result in Microsoft creating some dedicated “native integrations” for Cyanogen OS.
Cyanogen have been widely reported to be looking in ways to integrate more third party apps and services into their OS and this seems to be the latest move from the company in this respect. Cyanogen CEO, Kirt McMaster, further highlighted this point this morning “This exciting partnership with Microsoft will enable us to bring new kinds of integrated services to mobile users in markets around the world.” For those already running Cyanogen OS, Cyanogen did not comment in detail on when the partnership will begin at the end user level.